i cant even begin to tell you how frustrated i am right now with my car. After finally getting a tensioner tool it broke on me and now its lodged in my motor. It didnt even reduce tension on the timing belt but somehow i was able to get them on at TDC with both cam gear marks positioned symetrical to each other. When everything was said and done the car will not start. It turns over but its very erratic and it sounds terrible. No noises of metal to metal contact though.

Is this a timing issue? I've got a tune 400 miles away on Wed and i kinda need to make that date....dont think im going to.

Did i do any permenant damage to my motor?

 

please someone help me out

 

1st.
remove the tensioner tool.

2nd

-Whats cams did you install?
-Did you rotate the engine to ensure that the timing marks matched up after the install?
-Did you install cam gears?
-Are you 100% positive that you didnt let the belt slip off of the bottom when doing the install?

 

There are tons of things that could be wrong if you screwed up a cam install. Especially if you took the short-cut and did not remove the timing belt all the way. Timing could be off. You may have installed the cam position sensor incorrectly. Those are popular mistakes.

 

How do you recommend removing it? All thats left is a threaded rod and double nutting it wont work because the thread was damaged at the top.

I installed HKS 264i/272e. As for rotating the engine manually after the install, it was too difficult because of the high compression. I installed Fidanza cam gears. I am pretty sure that the belt didnt fall off the bottom because it seemed to be pretty tight all the time.

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

you need to make sure your cams are in time. first make sure you set them at tdc. also check the cam sensor to make sure you have it installed proper.

this is why if you are not sure what you are doing, pay someone before you kill the engine. you will save money in the long run

 

You could have taken the plugs out so you could turn the motor.

Im not sure how youre gonna get it out but I wouldnt drive your car until you are sure everything is 100%

 

i dont understand how you can screw up a cam install , yeah man, if it barely idles, then yeah its probably your timing, or the cam sensor installed wrong. Good luck.

 

I dont understand how it could be too hard to turn the engine over, but it wasnt too hard to break the bolt for the cam gear.........that was a whole lot tougher for me

 

You need to take the middle/lower timing cover off. The motor mount probably needs to come out. You may need to jack the motor from underneith with a jack and a piece of wood as not to damage the oil pan. With the timing cover off you can get to the bottom of the tensioner tool. I would take vice grips to back it out.

 

Please do not take offense at this advice. You need to get a professional to undo the mess you made. Do it before you destroy your engine. The kind of problem you describe can only mean you are way off with your valve timming. The tool you needed was the adapter that goes on a wrench handle. The tool you broke is for adjustment not removal and instalation of the cam belt.

 

Way too many people think cams are a quick and easy install. Especially the people who take the short cut and don't remove the timing belt completely.You can screw tons of things up if you are not a savey wrencher.

Find someone who knows what they are doing! Better to pay a little money than screw up your motor.

I agree, get that tensior out of there. You will need to pull the timing belt covers all the way off. That requires removing the passanger motor mount, jacking the motor up and down to access all the bolts, and also removing the idler and water pump pulley. You will also need the tensioner tool for the real timing belt tensioner pulley. Your timing needs to be checked with all the marks.

It's possible that your problems are because of the cam position sensor being installed wrong. But you still need to get rid of the broken part.

 

everything has been taken care of now. The car was towed to a local shop and its in the process of being fixed. Turns out i was a few teeth off.

 

Out of curiousity, what tensioner tools did you use and where did you get it?

TIA

 

it was a plain threaded rod with a 13mm nut welded on top of it. Found out today that i bent a valve. Lesson learned.